


Friends

by therune



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-08
Updated: 2012-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 06:32:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therune/pseuds/therune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, the Doctor feels like the loneliest being in the universe. Eventually, everybody leaves. Or do they?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friends

The Doctor has many friends. People from many different planets, robots, gestalt entities, whispers in the air, animals, plants and sometimes, mixtures of all of them.And yet, sometimes he is the loneliest being in all the cosmos.

Everyone leaves - either by choice or by force. And if they don't, he has to push them away, make them leave. He's not sure if his friends would forgive him. Susan maybe, but she's his granddaughter and that's different.

Sometimes he feels the weight of the universe crushing him. He faces battle after battle, adventure after adventure, but it is never enough.

For every planet he saves, one is destroyed. For every spared life, someone else loses his. For every victory, there is a defeat. Sometimes he's not sure if he can carry on, when there is nothing he accomplishes. When nothing changes. In the end, he is always alone. His companions back at home, or in a bright new world, or dead.

Everbody leaves in the end.

There is a time for such melancholy, and the middle of a battlefield is definetely not it. He is caught in a game of the Toymaster and doesn't know how he will escape this time. They're playing chess, with the Toymaster and the Doctor as the respective kings. The Toymaster's chesspieces are victims he lured here, innocent people who are now trapped. The Doctor stands alone.

A woman, forced into the costume of a pawn takes one clumsy step forward. "I'm sorry," she says, agony on her face. Her feet won't obey her. If she moves just once more, the Doctor will lose the game.He wonders if this will be the end, when he hears something.

But how? It's the TARDIS. But it's not one TARDIS, there are a dozen of them. If this would be one of those movies Peri's so fond of, all doors would open simultaneously, and all Doctors would step out, coats billowing, sonic screwdrivers in hand and determination in their steps.

But this isn't one of those movies, it's his life. Through the first door that opens comes Jamie, good, brave old Jaime. The Doctor, as he once was and is, keeps behind Jaime, peeking over the young man's shoulder. "Oh good, there I am. I mean, there you are!" he says and waves the the Doctor.

And as if a spell was broken, the other Tardis-doors open and people just come pouring out. Sarah Jane, Tegan, Adric, Ben, Polly, Romana, Susan, Nyssa, Romana, Zoe and - good lord, how many Brigadiers are here? And of course, the Doctors come. The crochety one, the clown, the dandy, teeth and curls, milksop and other Doctors he hasn't been yet. He doesn't want to look too closely, but they are either tiny or ridiculously tall. And they have brought his future friends, people he hasn't met yet. People who don't know him, not this him, and who came anway.

"Very good," one of the small future-Doctors says, "exactly as I remembered. Now, I think our king there looks a bit lonely. And we can't have that now, can we?"

"No, professor," a girl besides him says.

The Doctor can tell, he is going to like her. And all those other bright people.

He realizes something, looking at smile he remembers fondly and smiles he has never seen; greeting 5 Brigadiers; and all the men he hasn't been.

He is never going to be alone.

The Doctor will always have friends.


End file.
